FOLLOWUP: Spokane Street bike-path lights expected to be working by Friday night

As reported here this morning, the promised cleanup is under way along Spokane Street, east of the low bridge, including the area where a bicyclist was attacked last week while riding home from West Seattle. She and others, including West Seattle Bike Connections, pointed out that lights were out on that stretch of the trail and had been out – and reported as out – for months; Seattle City Light said the cleanup, and the sweep of tents encroaching on the path, would facilitate repairs. Today we checked back with SCL spokesperson Scott Thomsen, who told us the lights should be working by week’s end:

We have had workers out there this week, making repairs to lights and wiring where they could work safely. We continue to coordinate our work with the City, which is cleaning up the site to allow our workers better access to the equipment they need to fix. We expect to complete repairs and have the lights back on before dark Friday night.

Meantime, the cleanup operation will continue tomorrow; we went back through the area about an hour ago and there’s clearly still work to do, with bags of trash remaining along the south side of westbound Spokane, just east of where a backhoe was clearing a large dumpsite under the elevated roadway during our visit this morning.

Edit: I guess I didn’t look hard enough. Now I can see more tents in the distance. More work to be done. Still it’s great that we’re making progress. Maybe they can go to the dump/encampment under I-90 near Dearborn Street next. That’s a real eyesore.

Yup, those are the lights. I’ve been reporting their outage for years. No repair. Now I know the method– somebody’s gotta get attacked there. Sorry if that sounds crass. Actually I send my sympathies to the attacked cyclist. And to the folks reduced to living under those structures. And wishing the attacker can get the help they need to become a productive member of greater society soon.

flimflam…I was speaking about the lights…being out so long, not the attack. That’s abhorrent. One does not have to be a criminal that does that to be homeless…you can be homeless and still a good person. But the feet dragging by the city on the lights for…years? Truly wrong, just as a matter of course. I don’t care how it happened (someone stole, can’t get to fix because of encampment) Just fix it as a matter of course.Yes, if this attack hadn’t happened, the city still would not be paying attention. And I’m sure that the city must have an employee or two ( SPD?) who went by that pile of trash every so often , and it was just ignored? Surely some of Mayor Ed’s homeless budget could actually go towards providing sanitation, dumpsters, etc. But the city ignored, until…oh, those homeless people, such problems, drug users, filthy people, we need to just send them somewhere else mentality becomes pervasive in peoples minds. Homeless people are a fact right now…surely we need to remember they are also human beings, and try and provide the very minimum basics…they are sometimes invisible to this city until it’s too late, and the city has to take extraordinary measures. :(

All of California Ave was repaved but with all the new Apt. Being built they tore up the roads again for pipes. They do not demand that the road be put back the way they found it so we end up with s?!#y roads again. Yay for us.

The lights were on this AM (Thursday) for my bike commute. Amazing that in my 3 years commuting under this bridge that they have never been on. I’m deeply saddened that it took someone getting attacked to get the City and SCL to make this a priority.

The path under the east end of the lower Spokane St bridge was covered in thick, ridged wet mud. I could see someone easily slipping out and crashing from this. The clean up was done carelessly and is not finished here. Not acceptable!

A lot of commenters on this blog constantly lament that the City “never does anything”—maybe those folks can moderate their rhetoric a bit and realize there are pragmatic constraints to what the City can accomplish, but at least they are responsive to community concerns. Let’s also not forget this encampment popped up because the City swept tent camps elsewhere, like the Jungle, forcing the transient populations into other areas. So congrats NIMBYs, you got the eyesore and safety hazard removed—for now….

But I was told there was a ten year plan to solve this issue!? A lot of tax dollars was spent for this ten year plan! Crazy me to think that city government is making it up as they go! Time for me to go and ride my Pronto and be a NIMBY!

Dear WSB, did you get any explanation regarding why they were able to get the lights fixed so quickly? An estimate I received from SCL just a week or two ago said that a complete engineering change and permits were needed to fix it, and it would take months. Why is there just a difference between their communications and reality?

Our story from last Friday (linked above) said they had been hampered at getting into the area because of people camping nearby, so, once the path-side area was cleared this week, they would be able to get in. I don’t know the reason for the discrepancy in explanations.

Meantime, I’ve asked the city for updates including what’s been done and what’s next, and am told that information will be available tomorrow morning, so I have no updates tonight. We drove westbound Spokane early this afternoon, best we could do today, and did notice that bagged trash on the south side of the road, alongside the RV camp, was gone.

(Common loon in winter plumage, photographed by Mark Wangerin) Lots of good cheer - and some community involvement too - in our highlights for the rest of today/tonight, from the WSB West Seattle Holiday Guide and Event Calendar: COCOA CRIS CRINGLE: 4-8 pm photo sessions at Easy Street Records, rais...